The Wisdom of Sukuh Temple

Finally I arrived on the Sukuh Temple. This temple is located on the top of valley, and I can saw the striking view of tea plantation up above this temple. I sensed a different sight from Cetho Temple, if the Cetho aim us to see the mountain this temple aimed us to see the lovely curved of the valley. I assumed that this temple is more feminine than the Cetho.

The site itself is not large, but it has large pyramid of stone and also has many intresting relief and statues.  Some carving here is led to dubbed as "erotic" temple but it has some spritual meaning. The fate acrossed me to the teacher around here. He taught two female student who was going to exam and he kindly allowed us to listen to the story of this temple.

  

It is said that the one who enter the building must be virgin. To tested it, the temple build Linggam on the floor of the gate.  The blood will spill from your body if you dare to broke the rule. This structure of Linggam is part of cult of fertility, this temple was sacred to the one considred was not pure. Right now, we can't cross this test however. People still considered this part of gate still sacred and they put a gate to block the way.

There is a linggam beneath the temple

Sukuh Temple Gate

The story of human birth

This temple has striking and vulgar view of human genital. This is the truth, that human life or even organism cannot be seperated from the sexual life. If our modern life see the  dirty part of it, this Sukuh Temple see the holy side of it. The story about linggam and yoni must have a been connection with the beginning of life itself and also the meaning of life.

On the left chamber of this temple, there is an interesting series of buffaloes statue. They already know there is a process of evolution long before the western even considered the theory. The Hinduism knew that the world has a cycle of life, even Vishnu has transformed 10 times and had been a tortoise before. So if you wanereing that these temple has many tortoise, the tortoise is symbol of Vishnu.

The panel beside the evolution statue is the story of Sudamala. This story symoblize the ruwatan ritual or cleansing ritual, the story is about the journey of Sadewa son of Pandawa five do the ritual to Durga. Durga was cursed by Shiva, and control the demonic world. In order to restore peace, Sadewa was sent by her mother to be sacrificed to Durga. Durga was ugly and has demonic physicial feature and she hates herself. Sadewa do the ritual and turned the Durga became a beautiful girl hence Sadewa was allowed to killed the demon. So the scholar speculated that this temple was placed for ruwatan

In the left side there is an obelisk with a relief on it. The striking relief inside the womb, the womb itself was a love sign and there is he male and female inside the womb. The obelisk itself narrated the story of human birth. The Javanese ancestor belief that in the birth of the world was paralelel and can be explained by the birth of the baby.

On the middle of the temple, there was a pyramid that we can step onto it. The teacher told us to remove our shoes before enter it, and this structure is the most sacred building from all. This section was higher than other and Javanese belief the highest step of spirituality is to be vanished. Vanished from the world and the suffering of life and death. So this strucuture is beyond life and death, this is the highest realm of the temple.

It looks like mayan temple

The Garuda

Next we saw the female touch her genital. This ritual called suwok, and usually after the touching she used it to wash the face of baby. This ritual is believed can repel the evil spirit, and Irang speculated about the gift of positive bacteria. Human itself not only contain spirit, mind and body, but also the bacteria. Which can boost the immune system of human, so the Javanese quite advance on this one. And there is the male holding his penis. The teacher told me that this act was used to repel the evil spirit. They usually do it in the night, for me it was frightened so no wonder the evil spirit won't stay for long.

Sudamala story

The last relief is one of the example the workshop of blade. This picture Bima, and Ganesha to build a weapon. This relief remind us, that the power of Bima or Ganesha is came from hot fire and the cling of hammer. No easy way to be strong! By the way, Bima is the strongest warrior on Mahabara time so this relief showed an example how the workshop was worked.

This temple gives very strong impression, and like no other in the world. So I would like to reccomend this place for all traveler around the world, to came and see another idea about the world.